Taxi driver returns €250,000 to passengers

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A taxi driver in Bavaria found €250,000 on the back seat of his cab on Sunday. He found the elderly couple it belonged to and turned down a finder's reward, accepting just €12 as a fare to return the money.

Thomas Güntner, a taxi driver in Würzburg, noticed the cloth bag on the back seat of his car shortly after an elderly couple he had driven home left the car on Sunday afternoon. He had picked them up at the bank, and dropped them at home.

He peeked inside to find €250,000 in €500 notes. “I was totally perplexed and surprised, that people could carry around so much cash and then forget it,” he said on Tuesday.

Güntner said that keeping the money was not an option as he knew that “it would probably be the downfall of the old couple”. For this reason too, he turned down a finder's reward.

Half-an-hour after finding the fortune he turned up at the couple's house, cash in hand.

The woman was waiting at the door with tears in her eyes and let herself be consoled by Güntner, the Main Post newspaper said. “I'm still shocked,” she told reporters on Tuesday.

“She was as white as a sheet and told me that I saved her life,” the taxi driver said.

They then paid him the €12.30 fare that the journey to their house would have cost.